Suspicions that Peter Kenyon is actively working to develop a blueprint for a breakaway European league are widely held in football. Kenyon says he has never received any request to do so from the big European clubs who are pushing for revolution in the game. This is true, but Digger can reveal the former Chelsea chief executive and the Creative Artists Agency he works for are waiting for the call.

CAA is one of Hollywood's biggest talent-representation firms and it expanded its focus to the world of sport a few years ago. Last year it recruited Phil Lines, the former head of broadcast rights at the Premier League, and Uefa's marketing director, Philippe Le Floc'h. These men are international experts in the value of rights and sponsorship deals and have the contacts and capabilities to deliver the infrastructure, broadcasting and commercial framework for a new competition. (And they are not cheaply acquired: Lines's salary and bonuses at Gloucester Place are believed to have been in excess of £500,000 a year.)

CAA also co-owns a finance-raising firm, Evolution Media Capital, and Rick Hess, a CAA agent, has said: "EMC operates similarly to a boutique investment bank where they have the mandate to advise clients, structure and arrange transactions, advise clients on all financial services on capital raised."

Upon hiring Le Floc'h last September, CAA announced that its sports division "also works in the areas of investment advisory, asset management, industry research, and capital-raising services, and provides a wide array of advisory services including strategic analysis, valuation and negotiation of media rights and regional sports network planning and operational strategy."

EMC would be open to raising the finance to underwrite a breakaway project, and Lines and Le Floc'h would get to work on building the broadcast and commercial agreements to make it work while Kenyon, a former member of Uefa's strategic committee, would attempt to smooth its path politically while acting as a central point of contact for clubs who are otherwise rivals. But the European Club Association knows that as soon as it engages CAA or any other agent to undertake the market‑testing exercise that would make its threats to Uefa and Fifa truly credible, the authorities would consider it a declaration of war. It is not a step the ECA is set to take lightly.

Costly deal for FA

The Football Association could lose out on millions of pounds of commercial income as a result of Uefa's new centralised broadcast-rights deal, swallowing much of the gains the European confederation has promised it. As revealed here yesterday, Uefa's switch to a single point of sale rather than the current piecemeal, nation-by-nation rights deals, will force it to dip in to its reserves to deliver on its promise to raise the return member associations receive from international qualifying tournaments. In order to minimise the shortfall from what it receives against what it has promised, experts expect Uefa to strike a deal with a pay-TV broadcaster and this means some of the big nations' gains from broadcasting rights could be lost in reduced commercial income.

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland signed a combined £40m, three-and-a-half-year deal with Vauxhall for the title sponsorship rights to those national teams in January. Vauxhall paid a premium for knowing their brand would get free-to-air publicity, with international matches screened on ITV. The switch to pay-TV would reduce this exposure and also, therefore, contract values.

The FA's contract with ITV runs to almost 200 pages and its long-form agreement with Uefa will be a similarly detailed document. Uefa has 53 nations, all with individual requirements just like the FA, and now Digger hears unconfirmed talk that not a single long‑form contract has yet been struck with any of the 53 associations. So Uefa's hopes of approaching the market in January look as ambitious as their promise to raise more from a new centralised deal than the existing arrangement. And if, as everyone seems to believe, the centralising deal is a political ploy by Michel Platini to shore up support among minor European nations ahead of a run for the presidency of Fifa, it seems a steep price for football to pay.

League in final flap

There is anger at the Football League over the decision to take the Champions League final to Wembley again in 2013. The League will once more have to bring forward its contracted dates for the play‑offs in what will already be a truncated season: the start of the 2012‑13 campaign will be delayed for a week to accommodate the London Olympic Games. That will lead to considerable mid-season fixture congestion (particularly as Uefa has since last season extended its Champions League semi-final dates across more weeks, when other football may not be played). The League is not convinced about the reasons given for the move staging a second final in three seasons at Wembley, assisting the Football Association with its 150th anniversary celebrations. "It's much more likely to be about the £4.5m Uefa got from hosting it there last time," an insider said.

Legally challenged

The Premier League is set to lose its head of legal two months before the judgment in the case of a pub landlady using a Greek satellite decoder, which could explode the League's lucrative overseas-rights model in Europe. Oliver Weingarten, who set the ball rolling on the Murphy case in 2006, announced to fellow staff he is leaving next Friday to pursue new challenges. The setback is also a blow to the Sports Rights Owners Coalition, the lobby group, where the 32-year-old has been a driving force since its inception.